The town of Alta, Colorado was one of the longest lasting mining towns. It shut down around the time of the start of World War II because of a fire that devastated the entire town. Because it lasted so long, there are still some remains standing today which has allowed experts to asses the damage the fires, common to the Colorado mining towns, caused. However, the delicate debris of the town will not last much longer.
Because of the arid temperatures that many of the mining towns experienced, especially in the summer months, fires were extremely common. Fires were so common that they can be labeled as one of the causes of the disappearance of mining towns. Fires are one of the main reasons why we have these “ghost towns”.
In the image, we see the remains of what appears to be one of Alta’s main streets. Although there are no images of Alta during its days as a booming mining town, we can assume, based on layouts of other towns, that this was one of the main streets. From looking at the image of Alta’s remains, it is obvious that there was a major fire. There are burn markings on the sides of the buildings and they are stripped down to their skeletons. The buildings don’t look like they’ll be standing much longer.
This was not an isolated event. Towns throughout Colorado were plagued by these devastating fires. Citizens who survived would be forced to pack up whatever they had left and move to one of the surrounding towns, leaving their old town to decay into the hills.
Como, Colorado was another one of these towns. Como’s success was based off its railroads. When a 1909 fire destroyed most of its railroad, the town was on the decline. In 1935, another fire destroyed the roundhouse, one of the main buildings. After the two fires, most of the residents packed up to move onto a new town. Como was abandoned.
Another town that was consumed by one of these fires was Anaconda, Colorado. A fire started at a meat market in 1904. The fire spread to much of the town and the town was promptly shut down.
These fires almost always meant the end for a town. People had no means of putting out fires quickly and efficiently and had to watch as their homes and businesses burned down.
Hi Alanna! Let me first say that I think your topic to be very intriguing. I've always found ghost towns to be so mysterious, but I never really looked in to how they came about in the first place. Obviously, fire seems like a very reasonable explanation.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of your writing, there were a few things that stood out to me. First, your style of writing in this post is sort of choppy. Your sentences are all rather short and don't naturally flow together very well. And although it is the main idea of the post, you use the word "fire" quite alot, which distracts a little bit from your writing. Also, some of your phrasing at the beginning is a little wordy and hard to follow the first time around- and it would be "have allowed," not "has allowed." While, I'm on the topic of grammar, it would be "assess," instead of "asses."
Another thing I'd like to point out is your comment on the town of Anaconda seems like it was hastily added to the text, although I think I understand it's relevance. If you add this to your research paper, you should probably elaborate on that example so it becomes more relevant to the rest of the subject.
Alanna, this is a bit of a tough assignment. I understand that you probably added the Anaconda information because there was nothing left to write about the image. This is understandable. What you write about Alta is good, and I suspect you can use this portion in your final paper. I would take most of Emma's advice regarding the actual writing style. There is nothing wrong with simple sentences. However, you have to make sure that there is a smooth transition between them.
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